Sunday, May 26, 2013

Saturday, May 25, 2013

Chilly night last night but not too bad, I was comfortable although it was a bit hard to get myself out of bed.

I woke up at 4ish in the morning to get some bladder relief. I stepped out and I see a guy setting up camp. It is 4 in the morning and this guy is out there setting up, and not being quiet about the whole thing. It was kind of strange.

Got started running more great roads that seemed to have a lot of rock quarry's. None of the cool ones that you could go swimming at or anything but I did walk up a couple and check them out in case it would be worth riding the bike around the fence to check out.

We also came into quite a few acres of apple orchards and a cool little town in a valley.

This guy has a dislike for hippies apparently. (License Plate)

Came across this guy plowing the field. He waved at us but I didn't get my camera out fast enough to capture it.

We arrived at Wildcat Mountain State Park which if you have read my previous TWAT ride is where we started the last time. Last time the fog was so thick that we couldn't see anything from the lookout. This time things were a bit more clear.

I was a bit annoyed in Black River on sandy ATV trails that I thought I avoided with the GPS. I could have looked for a way around but instead sucked it up and just went for it. Of course I end up putting the bike down in the sand and of course I don't have my GoPro running to catch it.

You can see the nice gouge I put in the dirt.

After some real nice roads where we could actually get some speed we arrived in Thorp.

We started hunting around for a campground and found one with a site open. It had some close neighbors but it would work. On our way back to pay for the site, we noticed one off in the woods up a hill with stairs. It was a tent only site in the middle of no where. It was perfect so we grabbed it. For some reason we didn't take any pictures of that site.

After our Lake Superior trip I found that camp food doesn't agree with me and it is no fun to not know where the toilet is in the middle of the night when your body starts that fight. So I paced out the bathroom so in the middle of the night I wouldn't have an issue.

We spent the night hanging around the campfire, my nephew and his girlfriend brought out some wood and joined us for a few hours.

We called it a night and crawled into our tents. Nature calls at 2am, I am thankful for my pacing out the bathroom, it worked like a charm.

Friday, May 24, 2013

Isaiah came down and met me at work, taking off from work we jumped on the freeway for a two and a half hour ride to the start of the TWAT.

At high speeds my bike has a nice speed wobble. I have been fighting this for a few days trying to get rid of it with no luck. I finally found the issue three days before leaving for the trip so I was really scared that it could put a hold on things. It turns out these front tires are natorious for giving KLR's a high speed wobble. I ordered a replacement set of tires just in case I wasn't able to get the wobble out. I replaced the tube in case it had a kink or anything odd with it. The night before I balanced the tire one more time and decided that I was just going to ride it and hope it works out.

As soon as we got on the freeway I felt the wobble coming on. I just fought it the entire ride to the beginning of the TWAT.

We arrived at the start around 3:30, we were right on the border of Illinois, the starting point couldn't have been better.

Heading off on our litttle adventure I was taken aback by the great views on the west side of Wisconsin. We were heading through a lot of farm / ranch areas I was surprised that it just isn't flat land like our side of the state. I have been over to the west a few times but mostly around the Mississippi river which of course gives you the bluffs.

Our first night was at Wyalusing State Park and I was able to pick the worst spot in the campground. Apparently the good spots are exactly on the opposite side of the campground. It was so bad that I didn't even take a picture of our spot.

Let me show you the views from the other sites.

I will tell you that there is a super nice guy running the firewood store at the entrance of the park.

Most of the night was uneventful. Had some dinner, enjoyed a fire, and went to bed.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

I am so far behind with my posts. I apologize. This post isn't going to be much more exciting.

I leave tomorrow for the official TWAT ride. It has been a crazy week. I got new tires, got a new speed wobble, had finals, and all sorts of other fun things happening. I will get caught up with posts as soon as I get home.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

GPS got a bit of moisture in it. I first started having issues with it randomally turning off while running on battery power. I thought it had something to do with the batteries being loose so I tried adding a bit of paper to hold them in but still had the same issue. Then a day or so later I had moisture show up on the screen. I knew then I had a problem. I let it sit out in the sun but it didn't seem to draw the water out. Here was my next great idea, bury it in rice. I have heard this a few times from people with cell phones so I thought I would give it a try.

So the final results after letting it sit for 48 hours were great. There was no more moisture in the screen and it got rid of the issue of the random turn offs.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

I found the best way to clean my windshield is to just toss it in the dishwasher. I have spent so much time scrubbing the bugs and dirt off my windshield over the years and then I had an epiphany, why not just toss it in with the other dishes? Well Kari didn't like that idea so I took the dirty dishes out and ran it alone in there. Here is what it looks like.

This is the windshield before.

This is a picture of my dog mid-sneeze through the now clean windshield.

Here it is back on the bike. All the bugs and other road garbage is gone.

Now I would like to add that I used liquid detergent and not the powder packs. We had the powder packs and it took the finish off our dishwasher safe pots, I can't imagine what it would do to a plastic windshield.